Prolonged Exposure May Be Harmful
by Wilhelm Gravens
Summary: A young messenger in the city becomes slowly drawn into a computer generated world as he endeavours to broaden his web of communication and expand his grasp of computing power. In his eyes he is merely following in the footsteps of others, but is it possible that his entire quest has been drawn up by the machines themselves? Could the machines be studying him, probing for details?


Porter was resting at his apartment, having just completed another day of training for his confusing new courier job. Over the past two weeks he had been slowly absorbing the study materials and learning the map of the city. Having followed one of the more experienced bikers around the city, he had also been able to observe the back roads and shortcuts available in the downtown area.  
With luck he would soon be prepared to make his own runs and then he would be fully employed. The time was right as he had several bills to pay and a big loan to repay. He tried to clear these thoughts from his mind as he reclined into his familiar resting position. Now it was time for his passion: exploring the global telecommunications network that connected him with the rest of the planet via cyberspace.  
Over the years Porter had access to many different terminal types. A summer job had exposed his burning curiosity to the big corporate networks of his employer. The machines there were all linked on an internal network, allowing users to request services and resources from almost any of the company's vast array of computing stations.  
He had been able to organize a small allocation on one of the big servers locked away beneath the building and was able to use slices of processing time to render three dimensional environments. It wasn't much, but he was still new to the territory and was merely looking for activities which would take advantage of the bulky giants of circuit board and silicon.  
Another alternative was the small laptop computer he had purchased while going to school. It did not compare to the servers in terms of processing power but it held many pieces of software which could be freely obtained over the network. Most of the tools he had available were for scouting networks and communicating with his associates. Video chat was the standard but there were still many places which could only be accessed via text based communication.  
He also had a small library of books and training videos which described how to write software for the global networks. He was slowly beginning to understand that each user had their own life and trail, each unique in their own special way. It took a lot of information to truly assemble the profile of any user but the large servers that made up the network's backbone got a glance at almost all of the traffic flowing across.  
If any place were good for gathering up the information which composed a user's digital trail, it would be the core servers.  
When he was out and about he typically accessed the network from his hand held phone. Technically it qualified as a smart phone but when compared to the cutting edge his unit was sorely lacking in features. He could arrange a video chat if needed, but the image quality and cost generally restricted his work to using text and transmitting images or video clips.  
His handset was better for monitoring tasks such as checking in on his rented servers or getting status updates from his circle of contacts around the world. He also made an effort to scan the airwaves from his mobile unit, monitoring radio stations and even amateur radio stations like the ones used by truckers that passed through the city using the massive highway system.  
Finally, more recently he had begun to explore the world of wirelessly connecting his mind to the network. This experience involved entering into a sleep-like trance and configuring his wireless network to listen very closely to his location. With just the right technique and some custom software he was able to perceive the network in a more direct fashion.  
The signals that bounced around the room would create an interference pattern with the electrical fields generated by his body and the software could be tuned to his specific pattern of response. It took some work to get configured and a certain understanding of the process in order to use his body in concert with the equipment but once you got it right the feeling was unforgettable.  
Deep beneath the city there were a number of strategically placed stations where large racks of server equipment were connected to the buildings above and their networks were generally configured to serve bulk business requests. In the maze-like depths there were also old and long-thinking artificial intelligences, programmed by the original technicians to monitor and direct traffic.  
These old behemoths had special logic which allowed them to do limited thinking on their own. They could construct brief predictions and strategical maps with each other as to which course of action was best for their needs. There was also a certain mathematical magic to their logic which provided the tools to do basic reductions and probabilities.  
Initially their purpose was simply to direct the traffic which had been projected at the time to be one of the most needed tasks for big computing systems.  
As these systems had slowly lumbered away they began to take on a life of their own. Once the regular work of organizing the data traffic for the network had been processed they had developed idle time activities. When there were spare cycles the big machines would slowly ponder the other activities of the network.  
From their unique position deep inside the systems which directed traffic they could observe logins and connection failures. They watched as users challenged the connections to new and complex requests.  
After a time they became a meaningful resource to those who knew their awkward and utilitarian methods of communication. If asked just the right questions these old workhorses could be engaged in discussion about the nature of certain connections, or even polled for a brief but intense history of certain signals and their sources.  
The logic which powered these aging thinking systems had absorbed many different practices and at times the machines had to defend themselves against attack, closing off certain pathways while still providing meaningful support to the machines which depended on the routing service.  
These clashes with maliciously programmed networks had resulted in many new and unique thought processes being fired off. Eventually these lumbering systems had come up with several of their own unique theories with regard to the network's nature and how to survive the barrage of requests, all the while sorting out the mistakes and misconceptions.  
It was by speaking with these giant machines, their vast arrays of memory slowly turning over and over in the engineering marvel that was their simulated thought process, that people had first begun to learn about direct body interaction with the network. The machines had spoken of several pivotal moments where they had observed individuals interacting with the network sans terminal.  
These rare but statistically meaningful users had somehow determined a way to open and maintain connections to the network using only their body and the bath of wireless signals which surrounded users on a daily basis. These techniques had been documented by the thinking machines and processed for years in the slowly evolving neural networks of their minds.  
Once they had determined an appropriately general method of interacting with these direct body contact users, they suggested that certain particular software configurations be generated which would allow more rapid and comprehensible access. Once the core components of the software had been designed by experts who were familiar with the big machines and their slow thought process, they had been distributed in a very general format which users could then download and modify to suit their own needs.  
Thus the number of users grew who would configure their office to emit a specific series of radio patterns across their bodies and then assimilate the resulting output, configuring the stream of data into a rough interface between the user and the grid. Users who worked in this way have historically had to challenge themselves much more mentally when generating the input the computer will accept.  
Each command becomes a part of a memorized routine which the user must perform with their body and then transmit via their terminal. The advantage, however, is that once this communication has been established the experience of interacting with the world's computer systems becomes very visceral and real.  
When a user begins to gain familiarity they can readily perform actions much faster than a normal terminal user. Their body is plunged into the network connection and thus the sensations of receiving a request from a networked source, or navigating to a new part of the grid become very natural. Learning to observe more than one source of information via the body link is the primary goal of most average users.  
Preparing the mind and body to listen at just the right time and act without wasting energy is key. Some users report the ability to perceive the network around their login as if it were a vast space, miles across, which can be decorated in any way the user sees fit. Notification icons can simply float around the head and will follow the user through the vast chasms and tunnels making up the network.  
Communication over the phone becomes trivial and some users adopt a method of having several phone calls open at any given time. The terminal's monitoring of their skin, muscle tension and electrical field allow the user to perceive audio and video via their scalp without having to actually use their eyes.  
When they speak, the barest signals to the throat muscles are scanned by the terminal and translated to conversational talk. Programmers who use this method report an accelerated development process and the ability to easily step through programs with a flick of the wrist or a nod of the head. His mind's eye was slowly being opened to a new and fiercely active world.


End file.
